1 John 1:9 · Subject · Forgiveness
Forgiving Yourself: What Scripture Says
Scripture answers a conscience that keeps accusing with God's own verdict on confessed sin, in the Psalms, Romans, Hebrews and 1 John and in the restoration of Peter.
Judas said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood," and his remorse still ended in death by his own hand.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
- Books
- 1 John, Psalms, John
- Hold in memory
- Romans 8:1, Psalm 103:12
Summary
The phrase forgive yourself names a real trouble, a believer who has confessed a sin and whose conscience still accuses him. In Scripture God pardons sin against Himself, and He sends the troubled conscience to His own verdict. The one who confesses is forgiven and cleansed, and the work of Christ answers every charge the conscience brings.
- David kept silent about his sin until his strength drained away, and when he acknowledged it, God forgave the guilt of his sin (Psalm 32:3 to 5).
- Paul writes that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1), and Hebrews says that the blood of Christ purifies the conscience (Hebrews 9:14).
- After denying Jesus three times, Peter was asked three times whether he loved Him and was charged to feed His sheep (John 21:15 to 17).
- Paul calls himself the worst of sinners and says that Christ showed him mercy as an example to those who would believe (1 Timothy 1:15 to 16).
A Conscience That Will Not Rest
The study reads what God says to the guilty in His word beside what a guilty heart says to itself.
This study is for the believer who has confessed a sin to God and still lies awake accusing himself for it. It belongs to forgiveness, the value Scripture asks of everyone whom God has forgiven, and it asks how that forgiveness reaches a troubled conscience.
The question it answers is what Scripture says to a conscience that will not rest. The study sets out eight steps of practice with their verses and the texts from the Psalms to 1 John. It reads the cases of Peter, Judas and Paul, counts the phrase forgive yourself in the Berean text and gives two readings of 1 John 3:20.
When Guilt Returns
The practice runs from the Psalms to the Gospels, and each act in it rests on a promise or a command.
A believer whose guilt returns has eight steps from Scripture, from naming the sin to God to strengthening others.
| Step | What the believer does | The Berean text |
|---|---|---|
| Confess | Names the sin to God and hides nothing | "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," |
| Trust the promise | Rests on the forgiveness that is with God | "But with You there is forgiveness, so that You may be feared." |
| Bring the heart to God | Sets the accusing heart before the God who knows all | "God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things." |
| Answer the charge | Points to Christ who died, was raised and intercedes | "Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died," |
| Draw near | Comes to God with a conscience cleansed by Christ's blood | "having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience" |
| Weigh the grief | Lets grief lead to repentance and turns from despair | "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret," |
| Press on | Leaves what is behind and strains toward what is ahead | "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead," |
| Strengthen others | Uses his restoration to help fellow believers | "And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." |
Press on, Strengthen others
What God Says to the Guilty
Texts from the Psalms, the Prophets, Romans, Hebrews and 1 John speak in canon order to a conscience burdened by confessed sin.
David's silence drained him until he spokePsalm 32:1 to 4
Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose iniquity the LORD does not count against him, in whose spirit there is no deceit.The psalm opens with the blessing of the forgiven, so David writes his confession from the far side of it.
When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was drained as in the summer heat. SelahThe psalm sets the decline of David's body beside the hand of God pressing on him day and night.
God removes the sin He forgivesPsalm 103:10 to 12, Micah 7:19 and Isaiah 43:25
He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.The psalm measures the removal of sin by distances that no one can cross.
He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.Micah pictures forgiven sins thrown where no one can reach them again.
I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.God says that He blots out transgressions for His own sake, so the ground of the pardon lies in Him.
Paul finds no one left to condemn those in ChristRomans 8:1 and 8:33
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.Paul gives the verdict that stands over everyone in Christ Jesus.
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.Paul asks who could bring a charge, and he answers that the Judge Himself justifies.
The blood of Christ cleanses the conscienceHebrews 9:9 and 9:14
Hebrews says that the gifts and sacrifices of the old tabernacle were unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshiper (Hebrews 9:9).
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!The writer sets the cleansing of the conscience as the work of Christ's blood, and he names its purpose, the service of the living God.
John speaks to the heart that condemns1 John 1:8 and 3:21
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.John rules out the denial of sin before he gives the promise of the next verse.
In his third chapter John turns to the believer whose own heart condemns him, and the two ways of reading his answer are set out in the debate on 1 John 3:20.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God,John's word for the heart at rest is confidence before God.
Peter, Judas and Paul
Scripture records how three men lived after a grave sin against Christ.
Peter wept after the Lord looked at himLuke 22:31 to 32 and 22:61 to 62
Before the denial Jesus told Peter that He had prayed for his faith, and He gave him a task for the time after his return (Luke 22:31 to 32).
And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word that the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.Peter's bitter tears follow the Lord's look and the memory of His word.
Judas returned the thirty pieces of silverMatthew 27:3 to 5 and 2 Corinthians 7:10
When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was filled with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he said. “What is that to us?” they replied. “You bear the responsibility.” So Judas threw the silver into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.Judas confessed his sin to the chief priests, and they answered that the guilt was his to bear.
Paul's word to the Corinthians sets the grief that turns to God apart from the grief of the world, which ends in death (2 Corinthians 7:10).
The risen Lord restored Peter by the Sea of TiberiasJohn 21:17
Jesus asked a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was deeply hurt that Jesus had asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” “Lord, You know all things,” he replied. “You know I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.The third question grieved Peter, and his answer rests on what Jesus knows of him.
Augustine joins the three questions to the three denials in his Tractates on the Gospel of John. He writes, "To the threefold denial there is now appended a threefold confession, that his tongue may not yield a feebler service to love than to fear".
Paul kept his past in view as the measure of mercy1 Timothy 1:13 and 1:15 to 16
I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man; yet because I had acted in ignorance and unbelief, I was shown mercy.Paul sets his former life beside the grace that overtook it while he acted in ignorance and unbelief.
This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for this very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His perfect patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life.The saying Paul quotes is the gospel itself, and he points to his own life as its proof.
A Phrase Scripture Leaves Unused
The Berean text counts the word forgive in many verses and the phrase forgive yourself in none.
The word forgive, with forgiven and forgiveness, stands in 118 verses of the Berean text. The phrases forgive yourself, forgive yourselves, forgive myself, forgive himself and forgive themselves stand in none.
The Greek pronoun of Ephesians 4:32, heautois, is reflexive in form. The STEP Bible tagging from Tyndale House glosses it each other, and the Berean text renders it "forgiving each other".
Luther, Bunyan and MacDonald on a Troubled Conscience
Three writers of later centuries and one modern ministry describe what a troubled conscience needs.
Martin Luther, in the Large Catechism, says that daily sin throws the conscience into unrest and leaves it afraid of God's wrath. His counsel is "that we run hither and obtain consolation to comfort the conscience again".
John Bunyan tells in Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners how, as he walked in a field, a sentence came to him that his righteousness was in heaven. He saw then "that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse".
Bunyan found the ground of his peace of conscience in Christ: "for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself".
George MacDonald uses the phrase in his Unspoken Sermons. He wrote that God's forgiveness can "make us able even to forgive ourselves", and that "some are too proud to forgive themselves, till the forgiveness of God has had its way with them".
In his sermon "Justice" MacDonald wrote, "No atonement is necessary to him but that men should leave their sins and come back to his heart". That sets him against the teaching that Christ bore the penalty of sin.
Got Questions Ministries, in its article "What does the Bible say about forgiving yourself?", uses the phrase as MacDonald does: "Forgiving yourself, then, actually has to do with receiving God’s forgiveness."
Henry and Spurgeon on Guilt and Mercy
Five comments from Matthew Henry and Charles Spurgeon speak to the fears of a forgiven sinner.
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“They may be chastened of the Lord, but not condemned with the world. Now this arises from their being in Christ Jesus; by virtue of their union with him through faith they are thus secured. They are in Christ Jesus, as in their city of refuge, and so are protected from the avenger of blood.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Romans 8:1Puritan
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“It is a terror to a hypocrite to think that Christ knows all things; for the divine omniscience will be a witness against him. But it is a comfort to a sincere Christian that he has that to appeal to: My witness is in heaven, my record is on high. Christ knows us better than we know ourselves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on John 21:15 to 17Puritan
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“God is faithful to his covenant and word, wherein he has promised forgiveness to penitent believing confessors. He is just to himself and his glory who has provided such a sacrifice, by which his righteousness is declared in the justification of sinners.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on 1 John 1:9Puritan
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The quotation1 quotation
“There is a sinful forgetting of past sins and past mercies, which ought to be remembered for the exercise of constant repentance and thankfulness to God. But Paul forgot the things which were behind so as not to be content with present measures of grace: he was still for having more and more.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Philippians 3:13Puritan
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
The Treasury of David, Vol. 4
The quotation1 quotation
“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. O glorious verse, no word even upon the inspired page can excel it! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love! What a load to move, and yet is it removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Fly as far as the wing of imagination can bear you, and if you journey through space eastward, you are further from the west at every beat of your wing.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 · on Psalm 103:12
Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry, Charles Spurgeon
Two Readings of 1 John 3:20
Wesley, Henry and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read God's greatness over the condemning heart as a warning, and the Berean rendering reads it as a comfort.
God's knowledge makes the heart's verdict weigh moreJohn Wesley, Matthew Henry, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, reads the verse as a warning. If our own conscience condemns us, then "much more does God, who is greater than our heart".
Matthew Henry calls God "a greater witness than our conscience", who knows more against us than our conscience does.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown argue from the Greek that a verse meant to console would have been worded "Because EVEN if our heart condemn us".
God's knowledge overrules the heart that condemnsThe Berean Standard Bible, 1 John 3:19 to 20
The translators of the Berean Standard Bible render the verse as a comfort and join it to verse 19, where believers "will assure our hearts in His presence". On this reading the accusation gives way before the judgment of God.
Living from God's Verdict
The forgiven believer leaves the case where God has settled it and goes on to serve Him.
A believer whose guilt returns can bring it again to the God who has judged it in Christ. The memory of the sin may stay, and it can now serve repentance, thanks and the help of others.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!Paul calls everyone in Christ a new creation, so the believer's past is no longer the whole account of him.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible TBESG, Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0.
- Martin Luther, Large Catechism, the Fifth Petition, translated by F. Bente and W. H. T. Dau (1921)
- John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, paragraph 229, the Religious Tract Society edition (1905)
- Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 123, translated by John Gibb, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 7.
- George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Series One, "It Shall Not Be Forgiven", and Series Three, "Justice".
- Got Questions Ministries, "What does the Bible say about forgiving yourself?".
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, volume 4.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
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